The Bright Side of the Board
by Kuro49
Summary: Erik/Charles. Erik POV. You are the void in my heart, the gap in my life. He thinks of Charles when all else is lost.


This is Erik/Charles throughout all the movie arcs, sort of. Basically it just features FC!Erik and Charles and old man!Erik and Charles. A little spoilers for all the films, warnings are out to those who actually knows how to play chess. OTL I don't own~ ;)

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**The Bright Side of the Board**

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There were two sides to chess, one black, one white (one light, one dark.)

Acceptance was in the bones of Charles Xavier long before he came to be Professor X and Erik had long since accepted this fact.

The Monument stood in the distance, like the satellite that would turn with will. The Lincoln Memorial was silent, there was only the two of them and a chessboard spread out against the stone steps.

As Erik leaned back, Charles took the liberty to make the first move.

Two squares forward.

In chess, pawns were always the first ones gone.

Charles' fingers didn't linger over the plastic pieces because their early moves were always quick and deliberate. The pace is second nature to them like the argument that was still hot in their heads.

_"We've started something incredible, Erik." Enthusiasm, excitement, exhilaration. Charles didn't understand why all the words that he was feeling right now started with the letter E. He only leaned in closer with a pair of fascinatingly wide eyes. "We can help them."_

_He saw hopes and ambitions, he was still seeing something far beyond the isolation mutants have come to surround themselves with. With his endless devotion, Charles was nothing but a hopeless romantic._

_"Can we? Identification, that's how it starts. And ends with being rounded up, experimented on." He didn't pull back from the stare and even though he would hate himself for it, he knew his next word would only do nothing but dim that bright blue by a fraction of a hue. "Eliminated."_

_He had seen fear and pain, he was still seeing something cold and real that had settled itself into the core of what he had built his life on. Erik, too, was a hopeless romantic with his own version of a deep-set dedication._

_Charles shook his head._

_"Not this time. We have common enemies. Shaw, the Russians. They need us."_

_They have not yet learned to turn the board a safe one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees and take a look from the other side._

_"For now."_

_Erik smiled bitterly in return._

It was a slow burn that hurt and ached somewhere beneath the skin.

The game was lying in ruins across the board and the short distance, a total span of eight squares, between them was filled with aggravated feelings and a mini hurricane of emotions coiling in a destructive turmoil.

They needed to clear the board and start again but neither could make the first move.

It wasn't irresponsible of Erik. It was just a soft nudge of leather shoes against grey dress pants as he spoke up, breaking silence into words and stale air into another easy breath.

"Your turn, Charles."

He would be willing to take twice the hate and three times the hurt if only the world would keep its claws from bearing down on Charles. There wasn't blame or a single will to push the problems into someone else's lap. No, Erik wasn't like that at all.

Charles glanced up with a grin and pushed a piece forward.

"Check."

A white rook came to meet the black king and the game continued, like as though their inability to see things from the other's perspective was just a bad taste lingering in their mouths.

It wasn't checkmate yet but it seemed clear enough, like Charles was to the human mind and Erik was to the metallic edge.

"Are you letting me _win_ this round, Erik?"

"Who said I was, Charles?"

_I am a telepath, my friend. You don't need to say anything._

"I figured so far, your methods are hardly subtle these days."

_Don't avoid my question, Erik._

"Out loud, Charles."

"Oh sorry," _still_, "you have to play seriously!"

"Who said I wasn't?"

"Fine then, I am just going to win this game and all the other rounds after this."

"We'll see about that."

_Also, Charles?_

_Hm?_

_Don't be so cocky._

A war was inevitable but they could still hope despite all the signs.

000

You are the dark void in my heart (_the missing voice in my head_.)

000

Chess was a simple game of strategies, of offense and then defense.

Still, they managed to make it overly-complicated, unnecessarily-confusing, typical though because they were still Erik and Charles when they crash-landed. His back was pressed against the ceiling of the plane and Erik was his only anchor as they flipped and thrashed with the impact.

Everything afterwards spiraled into the deepest, darkest memories.

Because this wasn't what he had envisioned, there was nothing intentional or accidental with the way things had unfolded on a beach thousands of miles from home. No, not with the way the pain exploded with the metal and anger with agony.

It was a parting neither of them could foresee.

Neither was this a separation either of them would want.

They were too young, still forgiving blue eyes and pained green orbs. Erik clutched Charles close to his heart and the bullet burned in the middle of his palm.

"Us turning on each other. It's what they want. I tried to warn you, Charles. I want you by my side. We're brothers, you and I. All of us, together. Protecting each other."

The sunshine was hot on his back and the sand was scorching at his knees but what pained the most was the fact that his hands were too clean of blood. It was like as though he had never hurt and wound the one thing that mattered.

He bit back the despair that could have easily choked up his words and there was no hesitation, just endless determination.

"We want the same thing." _Go with me._

And it was too much misery and regret for the anger in his soul to consume.

"My friend, I'm sorry. But we do not." _Stay with me._

Neither could hear the other and it would remain with them because some things were only meant to be said once in a lifetime. Charles felt Erik letting go, setting him down upon the ground, too gently, and he almost wished that Erik could conjure up an ounce of hate in him so he could sleep a little easier nights after.

He held out his hand to the others, extending his offer outside his world of Charles Xavier.

Like the numbers that were etched onto the skin of his forearm, certain things weren't meant to be forgotten.

And Charles, he was Erik's first sacrifice.

000

You are the gaping blank in my life (_the point between rage and serenity_.)

000

Their dead man's land was an eight-by-eight square board and their armies were sixteen chess pieces.

The world was a little different and they were both looking much older. Still, right now, it was all clear plastic and no privacy.

The game was lying sprawled out between them.

Like a mess of clear and opaque that they couldn't clean up.

And the sight of that wheelchair no longer guilt Erik the way it did, years back, when he had first learned of the consequences of a single metal bullet. There were no longer tears to the pain he had felt. They have lived pass the regret and misery but they would still wake up in the middle of the nights, fighting back the memories of a cold ocean or a grey satellite in the distance, warm hands and words they never said out loud.

"Why do you come here, Charles?"

There were no hidden meanings or silent thoughts, it was conversation for the sake of the silence filling them up.

It was weeks since he had been transferred to this plastic prison and they were still years too late. Neither had the will to make things right. It was a mini-tragedy, an endless cycle of hurt before comfort until one side turned to dust. (But they didn't know that, just yet.)

"Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answer?"

_It is always because of you._

Charles moved his next piece with a faint smile stretched over his lips and Erik was suddenly feeling a discomfort building in this plastic bubble as he played chess with a man in a plastic wheelchair. Yes, for a second, he had forgotten that Charles was a telepath in the way that he forgotten he was no long wearing his helmet.

It took a moment before he registered the string of thoughts that intruded his mind with ease.

"…Ah, yes. Your continuing search for hope."

Erik shook his head in a calm disbelief he didn't know he still possessed. Charles didn't reply because there was never a mistake to it, Erik was always Charles' first glimpse of what hope could be.

Years and years ago when they were still young, when he could still walk, when they were still neck-deep in the cold seawater, shouting over the crash of the waves.

And Erik realized Charles was still the same old naïve fool that had believed in him when the world had fully intended to drown the two. Erik smiled faintly because things were still oh-so-wrong and they were still hopeless when it came to fixing what they had.

"You know this plastic prison of theirs won't hold me forever. The war is still coming, Charles. And I intend to fight it, by any means necessary."

He moved his opaque chess piece as his threat lay bare against all that clear plastic.

Charles didn't skip a beat, he merely shook his head as though Erik had always been the one to change his mind.

"And I will always be there, old friend."

000

You are the bright side of the board, _Charles_.

000

He was old and tired and it had been too many years since he had last felt regret rising to flood over the brim of his existence. The anger ran thin in his veins and serenity had long since dissipated.

There was no longer any sort of point between any sort of emotion where he could draw his focus from.

He sat at one end of a stone table and the surface was cool to the human touch, like the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial when Charles was still alive and well. Only now, he was alone at a park in New York without a company of one more.

Before he could manipulate metal and magnetic force fields, he was just a boy with a mother and father who had loved him dearly. It was morning when Erik Lensherr came silently home, after Magneto had rise and fallen during the night. And the cure had out right poisoned his very genes.

There were metal chess pieces standing over the board but the years of comfort and familiarity they should bring was no longer there.

It felt like he was staring at a stranger in the face.

"You look like you need an opponent."

A hand moved a pawn just as Erik glanced up evenly at the voice that had interrupted the silence around his spot at the park. Two squares forward. And the man before his eyes couldn't have been any older than mid-twenties with short curled hair and eyes that reminded him of _him_.

But there were no cold oceans sweeping them off their feet and Erik, he was years too old for this. Shaking his head, he merely excused himself the opportunity of a long-due game.

"I am waiting for someone, boy."

"Shame then, I could've made a good one." The young man grinned, baring teeth among smiles as he patted at the stone table, all in good nature. He was like them, once upon a time, observant and bold, careless and blunt.

His next words didn't intend to hurt, yet it was like a bullet to the back all over again.

"You've been here since this morning."

He had already turned to walk away but three steps from the table and the young man paused in his steps. With a quirk of his head, he looked back at him and Erik could see the grin that had dissolved into a faint smile and if he thought the truth hurt, he hadn't realized how much comfort a stranger's words could bring.

"I hope your opponent is worth the time, mister."

_(He always is.)_

It was a reminder of a promise he had made years ago. Erik smiled faintly as the boy disappeared down a trail in the park.

He had lost Charles twice in one lifetime and that was twice too many times.

From the first chess game, Erik knew he would be an equal, forever an opponent, all alike. He wouldn't mind playing the villain if only Charles could be the hero who lives at the end.

He didn't reach over to push the button on his side of the analog clock because that would mean he had to wait for a move that would never come. He only lifted a hand with all the focus he could muster from a fading memory of blue eyes and warm hands.

The metal chess piece wavered with his beckoning, like the human heart in his chest when it was subjected to Charles' calling.

XXX Kuro

Writing about two people playing chess when you know absolutely nothing about chess is hard, like real learning-how-to-play-chess hard. D:


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